<p>It really doesn’t seem too applied after taking 3 years of it. Signal transduction in mammalian cells and cancer genetics, for example, are examples of molecular biology upper division classes I’ve taken that are far from application and are memorization/theory heavy. There is no job that requires you to know this knowledge, in fact even cancer or signal transduction research does not require it - you can look this “memorized” knowledge up any time therefore it’s worthless.</p>
<p>Yes, theoretically, molecular biology does everything you said it does, but the ones who actually do it seem to be the PhDs(with postdoc experience required!). And many of the PhDs in biotech are not molecular biologists, they’re chemists or chemical/environmental engineers. At the B.S. level it seems, again, that chemists and engineers have a significant advantage over actual biologists. Everyone just picks a few techniques from molecular biology without deep understanding necessary. This is from a quick google search, maybe I don’t look hard enough.</p>
<p>Anyhow, what would you recommend? Since you worked in biotech, maybe you can point out some classes I should take to perhaps “see” the applied nature of molecular biology? You’re the expert.</p>